If you go: The painting of a shamrock under the famous green-over-red traffic signal.

When and where: Midnight tonight, Tompkins Street and Milton Avenue
Why: Hundreds show up for the annual ritual, which welcomes St. Patrick's Day to Syracuse. It is unofficially supervised by volunteers from Tipperary Hill.

The jeep braked to a fast stop Sunday at Milton Avenue and Tompkins Street in Syracuse. A couple of teenagers jumped out. They dropped their skateboards to the ground and immediately began fast and noisy routines atop the delicate memorial bricks at the Stone Throwers Park.

Gary Spath watched from across the street in mounting fury. He put up with it until he couldn't take it anymore. "Hey, you kids!" he shouted. When they looked over, he told them to get off the bricks. The teens responded by sitting down, skateboards in their laps, clearly waiting for this old guy to give up and go away.

Spath, 73, walked across the street to confront them.

"I've asked you before to just go and skate at the school, " he said, a pleading tone to his voice.

"We like it here, " replied one teen, who didn't budge. Spath pointed out the way skateboards had carved big chips into the engraved bricks. He explained how families use those bricks as tributes for loved ones. He asked the boys how they'd feel if someone defaced monuments to their parents.

The teenagers thought about it, then smiled. They stayed put.

Spath walked away, upset.

There was something eternal in the moment: Defiant teens about to abuse a civic landmark built to memorialize defiant teens who abused a civic landmark. In the 1920s, as legend has it, tough Irish kids on Tipperary Hill kept shattering the lights in the traffic signal until the city gave in and put the green over the red.

The teens on Sunday weren't old enough to realize how everyone needs a Gary Spath. The white-haired guy who hollers at us when we're kids is the white-haired guy we someday appreciate as a neighbor. Most of us remember folks just like him, the retirees who kept an eye on everything, the retirees who'd step in and tell us to knock it off.

Lose their vigilance, and you can lose a neighborhood.

Spath goes back far enough to remember sitting around the same corner when he was in school. For 54 years, he's lived a block from the famous traffic light. His home is on the upper level of the old Gooley commercial building, now called the Dublin Arms.

The bottom floor holds Driscoll's Tipp Hill Cafe, a new restaurant and ice cream shop. Two couples own it: Bob and Julie Rudd and Chuck and Maggie Driscoll Celentano, who is a West End native and a cousin of Mayor Matt Driscoll's.

"We did this because we believe in the neighborhood, " Bob Rudd said.

Spath understands. He is a retired legal assistant whose ancestry includes only "a smattering of Irish." But he fell in love with Tipp Hill as a child, and the people who matter to him are right there.

It was Spath, in the late 1950s, who created the "Mug Club" that became an institution at Coleman's Authentic Irish Pub. He later joined with Peter Coleman, the proprietor and a good friend, in coming up with the idea for a monument to the traffic signal.

While Spath envisioned a simple plaque, Coleman had grander plans. He raised enough money to build a sculpture of a family admiring the light. It was financed in part by the memorial bricks that drew the attention of the teens with skateboards -- who in turn drew the attention of the protector of the park.

Sunday, anticipating such St. Patrick's Day events as tonight's midnight painting of a shamrock under the traffic signal, Spath used litter tongs to clean up the street. As always, he could easily describe it as it was during his childhood.

The green-over-red light, he said, was once surrounded by Hennigan's Silver Star grocery, Brigandi's tailors, Gilmartin's corner store and Groucho Hewitt's fish fry; during Lent, the lines at Groucho's often stretched down the street.

Looking toward Burnet Park Drive, Spath made out the forms of many phantom landmarks: O'Brien's pharmacy, Ralph's shoe repair, Shanahan's groceries, the Buttercup Bakery, the Little Shamrock tavern, even a little theater where neighborhood kids once went to the movies.

"Anything you needed was right here, " said Spath, who still takes the bus and doesn't use a car.

Despite some worrisome changes on Tipp Hill, Spath understands why the new owners of the cafe are optimistic. Sure, he gets upset with absentee landlords who neglect their properties. But Milton Avenue always looks pretty good after he's cleaned up the trash. And he routinely runs into young couples who say they're settling in the neighborhood.

So he bags litter, and he does his volunteer work, and he keeps the faith. That's why he confronted the skateboarders, who on the face of it seemed to be wise-guy kids with no respect. Spath walked away in frustration, although maybe he missed one ray of hope.